


Azzanadra's Heresy (Domi's Disappointment Remix)

by The_Rolling_Tomes



Category: Runescape (Video Games)
Genre: Adult Language, Contains Slurs, Fantastic Racism, M/M, Observations on A Character, Racist Language, Religious Fanaticism, Sliske's Endgame Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:29:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23539153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Rolling_Tomes/pseuds/The_Rolling_Tomes
Summary: A few thoughts (not a fic) regarding Azzanadra and a particular scene in the quest "Sliske's Endgame," preceded by a few notes on racism.A warning: these views aren't favorable.
Relationships: Azzanadra/Zaros (Runescape)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 7





	Azzanadra's Heresy (Domi's Disappointment Remix)

  * **Azzanadra:** We seem to be running into each other a lot these days. But you've forgotten your Mahjarrat again.
  * **Moia:** Excuse me?
  * **Azzanadra:** And what are you supposed to be?
  * **Zamorak:** This is Moia. Lucien's daughter.
  * **Azzanadra:** Lucien's... daughter? How? But... her face. What is wrong with her face?
  * **Moia:** I am half-human.
  * **Azzanadra:** Half? But that's... my lord, did you know of this, this abomination?
  * **Zaros:** Yes. She is not important. The secret of her creation died with Lucien.
  * **Azzanadra:** Good!
  * **Moia:** But I could be the future of our race!
  * **Azzanadra:** Our race? Better to not have a future than this... this 'hybrid'!
  * **Moia:** Zamorak told me you were a self righteous fool. I see now how right he was!
  * **Azzanadra:** Zamorak, how can you stand to be around this 'thing'?
  * **Zamorak:** Moia is a loyal and capable servant. She is also perfectly capable of speaking for herself.
  * **Azzanadra:** My lord, we must... We must destroy this creature.
  * **Zaros:** We must do nothing of the sort. Moia is here as Zamorak's agent, and Zamorak and I have come to an understanding, as you should remember.



When a person has been a target for racism in the real world - particularly if that targeting has been physically or materially dangerous to them at some point in the past - it becomes a matter of continued survival to learn how to identify different types of racists and the respective risks they present. Not all racists are the same; some possess unthinking biases or subscribe to relatively inane stereotypes, some are quietly aware of their biases but act only under the cover of very plausible deniability when that’s available (i.e. - in the privacy of a voting booth or within the murky maze of “it’s fiction”), some are patient infiltrators of government who work to correct what they see as oversights in that government by tweaking legal and punitive systems to favor the “right” race, or were integral in forming and maintaining those systems to that end.

All these kinds (and some others, as the list above isn't comprehensive) are dangerous in a collective, systemic way. They’re not often what comes to mind when someone says “racist” unless racism and its effects happen to impact personally because, to the uninitiated, they look extraordinarily benign, powerless, even when they hold positions of power over others. They aren’t dangerous in an immediately tangible way - no gun toted, no bloody knife, no noose shaken threateningly in a hand; they're generally safe to challenge openly in a physically or virtually crowded area. These sorts also react in a wounded or defensive manner when their racism is pointed out to them, and onlookers tend to respond to the immediate emotional reaction and dismiss or minimize the racism in the face of that reaction.

There are also immediately dangerous racists. One of the easiest ways to identify those is by how prominent a driving force it becomes when positioned against other deeply-held values.

As racism is a frequent subject for online discussion, where people from virtually anywhere on the planet can join social media and be inundated with opinions or information on the topic, some of the least arguable and most readily identifiable signs are fairly common knowledge: dehumanizing language, suggestions that someone of mixed “master” race and “lesser” race is an aberration unworthy of existence, arguments in favor of eugenics, all the late-stage symptomatic heinousness depicted in the selected quest dialogue.  
  
Sliske’s Endgame, and this scene in particular, made concrete Azzanadra’s racism. For many - even those personally unfamiliar with racism and limited in the understanding of it to the hamfistedly cinematic - there ceased to be an argument. 

But, for those unfamiliar, that only slotted him into one of the not-immediately-dangerous categories, an angry old uncle who spits slurs in the grocery store at anyone who “looks suspicious” or isn’t speaking English.  
  
What this told me, and likely anyone who’s had firsthand experience with the immediate sort of dangerous racist, is that racism is the largest - or at least ties for the largest - driving force in Azzanadra’s character.

First consider what’s pretty much universally held to be Azzanadra’s most defining characteristic (with an honorable mention for that ridiculous tuning fork of a hat): his devotion to Zaros. Runescape’s lore is littered with evidence. There’s no argument within the fandom as to where his faith lay or how strong that faith is, and a fandom loves nothing more than to argue. Zaros is the nucleus around which the Pontifex Maximus revolves.

Now, look back up at the scene.

Ignore Azzanadra’s choice of words for Moia. Ignore the nature of his suggestions.  
  
In the excerpt above, there are three instances of Azzanadra defying Zaros’s wishes on the subject of Moia. Zaros tells him to ignore her, that he’s known about her existence and she’s not relevant to him - an implicit directive to drop the matter - yet Azzanadra continues. After the bit with Zamorak, he speaks directly to Zaros and _insists_ action be taken now despite Zaros having told him he’s pissing in the wind. Zaros refuses him again, and reminds Azzanadra that an arrangement for the pressing subject at hand has been made - a third admonishment that now, at least, is not the time to pursue whatever Moia represents.

Azzanadra’s revulsion at the prospect of a mixed-race Mahjarrat takes precedence over his consuming, otherwise unquestioning loyalty to Zaros. In a surprise face-to-face with a living embodiment of what he abhors, he challenges his own god not once but thrice. He presumes to know better than Zaros.  
  
A heretical thought. One spoke aloud, because a mixed-race Mahjarrat disgusted him on a level so intense that _Azzanadra,_ a man whose station in a thousands-year empire demanded equilibrium under public scrutiny, lost his composure.  
  
I wonder if anything will come of that. (And by that I mean I don’t; following through on the weighty subjects Jagex’s writers like to dabble in for shock value isn’t their strong suit. There’re more loose threads with those subjects than acknowledgments.)

Azzanadra’s racism isn’t new; his early interactions with the World Guardian post-Mahjarrat-reveal betray his lesser regard for humans. But up until that point in Endgame, that part of his character wasn’t disproportionate, only an element of the characterization counterbalance against his worshipful coveting of Zaros. It lent complexity to his character, helped make him the dark grey being fandom found compelling. That I, at one point, found compelling, if in a lived-experience-muted way. The Azzhole.

I do wonder if the writers understand how much this indirectly revealed about the foundation of the Zarosian Empire. Azzanadra was the religious leader in a theocratic government, second only to the god of that empire, with all the power that entails. Empires themselves cannot come into being or reign for any length of time without stepping on the rights, dignity, and lives of other people; it’s essential to the design, and even without the events of Endgame there isn’t a fantastical interpretation generous enough to divorce the Empire from what was necessarily an oppressive, hellish existence for multiple races under its thumb. That leader’s bigotries would be interwoven in his policies, his decisions. Resources and representation would be allotted accordingly. Heresy would be the foremost crime in any theocratic institution, and who determines what heresy is? Who defines both it and its repercussions for the clergy and charges them with its enforcement? Who determines which people - or groups of people - are most likely to fall prey to temptation and commit that heresy?

Azzanadra.

For me, the Pontifex Maximus was at one point a focus of great interest and speculation. And I didn’t mind taking some very fantastical, generous turns with my interpretation of him, including deviating from the commonly ascribed to (and probably canonically more accurate) unidirectional nature of his relationship with Zaros beyond that of god and appointed representative. In particular, I liked the potential inherent in a mutual relationship and the catalyst that could’ve been for Azzanadra’s growth as a character. Perhaps growth out of that racism. A necessarily rough development, but still.

Now, with the exception of avenues like _Gentili and Sculacciati_ where I can explore his pre-Endgame character and see those generous ideas through, or in others’ energy via fanworks, he bores me. He’s Sigmund with more power and a more elegant presentation. Zaros’s own “I want to sit at the big gods’ table!” revelation did something similar for me where Azzanadra’s god is concerned, although his lack of argument where Azzanadra’s response to Moia goes is also telling. “...that good men should look on and do nothing,” and all that.

After years of Jagex’s building up both god and faction to be mysterious, nuanced, and (at least given early impressions) most amenable to broad interpretation, both have been cheapened to the point of near-Bandosian unidimensionality. The source of humanity’s second-class stature in the Empire is pretty easy to trace. The choice in inspirational material for the Empire was already damning, but fantasy plausibly lubricated the tight spots enough to imagine.

That’s gone now. The idea that Azzanadra’s gentle, persistent encouragements to the World Guardian towards Zarosianism might be semi-benevolent or worth consideration - even if refused for other reasons - are gone. In trying to grey Azzanadra’s character (as well as revealing Zaros’s driving motives), they flattened his villainy. There’s nothing to distinguish him from any frothy religious dipshit waxing bigot, save his individual power, loquaciousness, and a vaguely Mephistopheles-Cardassian aesthetic.

And it’s really. Disappointing.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had these thoughts churning in a mental stew for some time. Endgame bothers me for many reasons - the handling of Sliske's character foremost among them - but Azzanadra's reaction to Moia's heritage hit home in a personally familiar way.
> 
> And a prime example of why capital-H Hell can be cathartic, or exploratory, or a challenge...
> 
> ...but it isn't a toy.


End file.
